Public Comments 2005-D013-

A paragraph in this Rule change talks about contractors engaging in hostilities. No longer limited to just self-defense, which is a limitation written into the Geneva Conventions for a person to preserve their "protected person" status, we are now specifically hiring contractors to be "unlawful combatants," mercenaries. And we are claiming that, after they have finished acquiring targets and engaging, that is, between shots fired, these mercenaries regain their protected status. This could have been written by Alberto Gonzales, Addington or Eichmann. The federal government is entering a brave new world with this change. Without any input from the US Congress, or the people of this once great nation, the people now in control of the federal bureaucracy have decided that it is now OK for federal agencies to employ mercenaries. This is quite a break from the values, traditions and principles on which this country was founded. 230 years ago, on 4 July 1776, the assembled colonies issued a Declaration of Independence. Part of it read: ?He [King George III] is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.? But now, an imperial president who cannot get enough volunteers for his illegal wars of choice, who dare not resort to conscription, is just going to contract out for the armies he needs to control the rest of the world. That way, he can start more wars without even having to tell Congress, let alone get permission. These chickenhawks have no grasp of the sacrifices made by those who serve in the military, so they cannot grasp how the resort to mercenaries dishonors our soldiers and Marines. Real soldiers, patriots whose willingness to endure even death for the protection of the nation, are to be replaced by contract soldiers. Screw the Constitution. We are at war with 250 or so al-Qaeda terrorists, so the country has to give up civil rights, abandon rule of law and flush honor and integrity down the toilet.